I have yet to determine when the ideal time to have my last cup of coffee is. I feel like if I don’t have it before 6 p.m., I’m totally going to fall asleep, but if I have it at 7 p.m., then I’m going to be awake all night.

in that space unrecognizable,
scotomata perforating your visual fields
the mind fills in the gaps
elides the ragged, raging ends of
punctured, gaping reality
all is well with the world
as far your aching mind is concerned
ignore something long enough and
trust me
it will eventually go away
and all bleeding stops eventually

Even a nuclear bomb up my ass
might fail to move my sad sack, bloated body off of this chair
stuck stupid and slack-jawed, gaping at this screen
(to filter through reality
like stripped shorn pantyhouse in front of a sewage drain
leaving the cigarette butts and used condoms to wallow
in that sepulcher of corrugated metal and chemical despair
letting the fecophilic micro-organisms,
the rich culture medium of turd
float out in the cold of the unforgiving sea)

I forget what exactly I typed into Google, but somehow I ended up at this archived discussion about the motif of static history in stereotypical fantasy. It’s true, Western Civilization seems to be obsessed with the idea that things were better in the past, and things really suck now. Tolkien called this idea ”The Long Defeat,” specifically referring to the Fall of the Noldor, from a state of Valinorean grace to becoming refugees fleeing Middle-Earth furtively in the night.

There is this punk on the Alibata Yahoo Group that I find myself arguing with whenever I participate in a discussion. Calling himself Malachi, he uses tactics that are reminiscent of the average troll. But for some reason, people never call him out for it.

A biography about Charles Schulz’s biography was recently released, and the blogosphere has had a field day analyzing it. While the Amazon reviewers are apparently disgusted by the dirt that Michaelis dishes up, other readers have found it wonderful to discover/have it confirmed that the creator of such a well-known cultural phenomenon as Peanuts was all too human.

In Southern California, autumn does not bring the changing of the leaves, nor the bluster of the cold. Rather, it brings fire and ash, as the Santa Ana winds dry out all the brush, leaving behind powder-keg conditions. All it takes is a stray spark, or the mindless malice of an arsonist, and literally all hell breaks loose.

Me and a colleague speculated over why San Diego County can’t seem to protect their citizens from something as regularly cyclic and expected as wildfires. Everyone knows the drill come October. The Santa Anas come blowing in. The brush dries out. Eventually something is going to catch fire, and the fire is going to spread. Fast.

While Governor Schwarzenegger, Mayor Jerry Sanders, and Representative Duncan Hunter continue to fellate each other about what a good job they’re doing, I’d like to point out that the evacuation effort actually underscores the fact that the victims of Hurricane Katrina were grossly mistreated and neglected.

It’s quite possible that my adrenal glands have finally given up. The wall-to-wall 24/7 coverage of the wild fires has worn me down. I don’t remember being this wired since the destruction of the WTC or maybe not even since the L.A. riots.

After grabbing some grub and buying more toilet paper, I noticed for the first time the unnatural, diffuse glow that seems to envelop all of San Diego. The sky is this bizarre faded and yet deep blue, like the color of the light filtering through an aquarium, maybe, or maybe more like a TV screen that’s on but without any input coming in, not even static. Or maybe more like an overexposed picture, and just as grainy.

I don’t know why, but suddenly I had the urge to try yet another blog engine, even though I haven’t really hacked into SimpleLog’s internals and given customization a chance, which was the whole point of using it.

It has been about six months since the last time I had to give The Talk™. It’s not something I’m particularly good at, although I’m better than I used to be. In the end, it’s about getting to the point: your loved one is dying, and everything we’re doing to her/him is only prolonging suffering. Will you give us permission to stop these things, and focus on making her/him comfortable?

It still remains to be seen if the U.S. can be salvaged from the claws of totalitarianism, but I remember the dark days of the botched 2000 election, when the Supreme Court stripped the people of their sovereignty and selected the guy who didn’t win the election, and I remember the cynical use of the destruction of the WTC as an excuse to foment war in Iraq.

The more I think about it, the more unlikely it seems that I’m going to end up staying here in S.D. While the weather is nice and I have some connections that would make it easier to find a job out here, I think I’m just sick and tired of most of the people here.